KFA Seeks Assurances On Carbon Credit Promises

The Kyoto Forestry Association
(KFA) is seeking assurances from the Labour and National
parties that their 2007 promises to post-1989 forest owners,
worth hundreds of millions of dollars, can continue to be
relied upon.

KFA spokesman Roger Dickie said post-1989
forest owners are becoming concerned by the lack of
information on the matter as political parties hold secret
talks on the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable
Preference) Bill.

In 2006/7, KFA ran a high-profile
campaign for the post-1989 carbon credits to be returned to
their rightful owners, the mum and dad investors who risked
their savings to plant trees since 1 January 1990.

This
led, on 9 March 2007, to National Party Leader John Key
announcing his party’s policy that “forest owners should
get a proportion of the carbon credits they have accrued
since 1990, and which the government has so far refused to
pay them”.

Mr Key was followed, on 20 September 2007, by
Forestry Minister Jim Anderton announcing on behalf of the
Labour-led Government: “From next year, owners of forests
planted after 1989 will be eligible for 100 per cent of the
carbon credits and liabilities generated under the Emissions
Trading Scheme. This is a world first. Depending on the
price of carbon, this is likely to be worth at least several
hundred million dollars to the forestry sector."

The
Government’s announcement led to KFA suspending its
campaign for the credits, including taking down its
“Labour’s Forestry Policy” billboards at Auckland and
Wellington international airports and putting them in
storage.

Page 2 of 2“We understand and accept that
the negotiations on the climate change legislation are
difficult, that they involve a very wide range of issues
beyond just post-1989 forestry and that there may need to be
changes to how the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is
implemented in order for the Bill to achieve sufficient
parliamentary support to pass,” Mr Dickie
said.

“Nevertheless, we have written to Climate Change
Minister David Parker and Shadow Climate Change Minister
Nick Smith seeking assurances that, at the very least,
post-1989 forest owners can rely on the value that was
promised to them by the Government in September 2007 being
delivered to them in the near future.

“Already we are
concerned that the value promised to us is being eroded as a
result of the decision to delay bringing transport into the
ETS. We are not prepared to see the value promised to us
being any further eroded through the current
negotiations.

“If the Government cannot deliver that
value to post-1989 forest owners through the speedy passage
of the ETS legislation, then we will want to talk to
Ministers about other ways the promised value can be
delivered to our members.

“In the meantime foresters and
investors will not begin new plantings of forests while
future policy is undecided. We anticipate that new plantings
in 2008 will be the lowest on record for New
Zealand."

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